


First Do No Harm

by Sita_Z



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien genitalia, Chronic Pain, Developing Friendships, Friendship/Love?, Gen, M/M, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Spones if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 10:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11896317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sita_Z/pseuds/Sita_Z
Summary: Spock’s first physical aboard the Enterprise leaves McCoy unsettled.





	First Do No Harm

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read as Spones, but doesn't have to. It takes place fairly early in the mission, so Bones and Spock are still not quite sure what to make of each other.
> 
> This story deals with a specific medical topic and its implications, so if that might squick you, please check the notes at the end.*

McCoy is curious, yes.

He tells himself that as a medical professional, it is his job to learn about his patients’ history, to study their files and memorize every detail. It’s standard procedure – he’d be derelict in his duties if he did otherwise. Nothing personal, and no one could accuse him of prying.

But… a Vulcan. Most of their medical textbooks are – were – on the VSA server, and accessible only on a need-to-know basis. There is so much lore and hearsay about their physiology it isn’t even funny. And of course, every doctor in the Federation itches to get their hands on a Vulcan patient, to be granted access to those medical treasuries and see for themselves what makes the pointy-eared bastards tick.

McCoy’s chance to do so is called S’chn T’Gai Spock, the Enterprise’s newly installed First Officer. He takes McCoy’s order to come to sickbay for his routine physical stoically, and McCoy assumes that to Spock, it hardly matters whether some insignificant Earthling waves a bio scanner at him and asks inane questions. In the grand logical scheme of things, surely an emotional human doctor barely registers.

He does not expect Spock to simply not show up.

McCoy calls him when he’s ten minutes late, but there is no reply. He calls the bridge, and learns that Commander Spock went off shift fifteen minutes ago, more than enough time to get his ass down to sickbay and onto a bio bed. He has the computer scan for Spock, and frowns when the disembodied voice tells him that it is unable to locate Commander Spock at this time.

Spock has tampered with the computer. And he has done so simply to avoid a routine visit to sickbay.

McCoy tends to take things personally, and this, to him, is very personal. He marches down to Spock’s quarters, uses his medical override and confronts the Vulcan. Spock is kneeling on an embroidered mat in front of a little figurine that contains burning embers. The smell of incense is cloying.

He tells McCoy that he will not submit to unnecessary medical procedures. McCoy rants and raves, and the Vulcan looks at him like a lion might look at a bird screeching from a tree top. In the end, McCoy leaves, his anger a hard knot in his throat.

He reschedules the appointment, and when Spock does not show this time, either, he notifies Jim. Again, standard procedure. And the worst possible start for what might have been a fruitful and productive working relationship between the two leading scientists on board.

Jim finds the whole thing funny – he would – and tells Spock to get himself to sickbay before Bones bursts a blood vessel. McCoy thinks resentfully of the time Spock had Jim by the throat, gasping and wheezing and scrabbling helplessly at Vulcan fingers that were slowly choking the life out of him. Spock’s particular brand of craziness wasn’t so funny then.

McCoy half expects it, but Spock does not disobey a direct order from his captain. He shows up in sickbay five minutes later, stiff and silent.

Despite everything, McCoy knows when to be a professional. He tells Spock to change into an examination gown, and even turns up the temperature in the private room he chose for the procedure. When Spock pads out from behind the curtain, the blue gown ending above his knees and showing pale legs and long feet, he does not smile. He simply tells the Vulcan to get on the examination bed and begins to fine-tune the monitor’s settings.

The readings are all over the place, as he expected – hybrids are always good for a surprise or two, and Spock’s particular blend of human and Vulcan traits makes for a very interesting anatomy. Far from a ‘halfling’, Spock is mostly Vulcan – about 85 % of his physiology is indistinguishable from that of a full-blooded member of the species. Yet here and there, McCoy stumbles across something that is unique to this being currently sitting on his biobed and logically hating his guts.

Spock has an appendix, for one thing. Completely human and completely useless. He has two kidneys, not four, nestled next to his _nafek yumasu_ , an organ only found in Vulcanoid species. And he had surgery as a child to correct a crooked nasal septum, a condition exclusive to humans.

He is one of the most fascinating cases McCoy has ever seen, one he could study all day and still have plenty of questions left unanswered.

Not that Spock will help him out there.

There is one reading in particular, however, that stands out, and this one McCoy can’t leave unaddressed.

“Are you in pain, Mr. Spock?”

Spock does not look at him. “I am in adequate condition and perfectly capable of fulfilling my duties, doctor.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

At this point, a human would know that the exchange isn’t over, that it is their turn to provide the information they have been withholding, but Spock never cared about the unwritten rules of conversation. He remains silent, staring at the empty space in front of him.

“Okay,” McCoy says. He’s going to be patient even if it kills him. “Let me rephrase that: Are you currently experiencing pain, and if so, do you know what’s causing it?”

“I see no reason to continue this conversation.”

McCoy takes a deep breath, counts to ten, then releases the air slowly. “Spock, listen. I know you don’t want to be here. I’m sorry it had to be this way, but I’m just trying to do my job, and my job is to provide the best care possible to this crew. In order to do that, I need you to answer when I ask you medical questions. Okay?”

“Logical.” The way Spock says it, the air around them seems to cool down by at least ten degrees.

“Great. Now, about those pain readings…”

“You need not concern yourself with them, doctor. I am Vulcan and as such my control is superior.”

For once, McCoy doesn’t take the bait. “So you know what’s causing the pain?”

Spock says nothing.

This – to be ignored like an annoying mosquito – gets McCoy more than anything. It shouldn’t; he’s been a doctor long enough to know that sick people are anything but easy to deal with. He’s had patients throwing tantrums in his med bay, has been shouted at more times than he can count. It comes with the job. So no, one recalcitrant Vulcan shouldn’t make him want to break things.

He does, though. McCoy grabs the box with the disposable gloves hard enough to crush it, then turns back to the infuriating alien on the bed.

“Alright then, Mr. Spock. I’m afraid we’ll have to do this the hard way. I’ll need to do a full-body examination, so you’re going to have to lose the-”

A hand closes around his wrist like a steel vise, holding him immobile before he can do so much as touch the man’s gown.

“You will cease prying into my personal business,” Spock says, very quietly. His voice is laced with an anger that McCoy has seen unleashed once before, on the bridge, shortly after they watched a planet implode. “I will not tolerate any more violations of my privacy, and I shall not be the object of your voyeuristic poking and prodding. So leave me be!”

“You’re hurting my hand,” McCoy says quietly, trying for a calm tone.

At that, Spock lets go. His face goes completely blank, and stays that way when McCoy carefully moves his wrist. There are four red finger-shaped impressions on his skin that may or may not turn into bruises.

“You can go,” McCoy says, and Spock slides off the bed. He does not apologize, but he does not look at McCoy either as he walks toward the changing cubicle.

McCoy makes a note in Spock’s medical file about unexplained pain readings. _Examination discontinued on patient’s wish._

He does not mention his bruised wrist, or the fact that Spock and he barely talk for a week.

Spock’s words stay with him, though. _Violation of privacy. Voyeuristic poking and prodding_. He has come to know the Vulcan well enough to realize that Spock is very exact in his use of Federation Standard, even if he claims not to understand colloquialisms and idioms.

‘Violation’ and ‘voyeuristic’ carry a layer of meaning McCoy hadn’t previously thought of, and he finds it hard to associate it with the proper First Officer. But Spock used those words, and his reaction to McCoy’s provocation was disproportionate in its intensity. Even more so for an allegedly unemotional being.

McCoy still thinks of the incident once in a while, and mostly feels genuine regret at being unable to help a patient. Somewhere in there, however, and he’ll be the first to admit it, is unsatisfied curiosity. Spock is the first alien McCoy has come to know personally, and as a scientist, he wants to find out more about this being, both on a physiological and psychological level. He wants to see if those carefully controlled emotions are the same, deep down, as a human’s would be, or if they are still different, still alien. He has seen Spock’s anger twice, and it felt rawer than a human’s would, more primal perhaps. He has caught glimpses of satisfaction and maybe even pleasure when Spock succeeded in one of his experiments – and once, strangely enough, when Jim clapped him on the shoulder for a job well done. He has observed something that might have been boredom during a lengthy vid call with the admiralty.

Even so, he has been unable to answer the question whether Spock feels like a human does. Or, in fact, why he is in pain and unwilling to seek medical help.

McCoy does not like unanswered questions. They irritate him, and so does Spock. He shows this by needling him and questioning his logical view on life. Spock responds in kind, so it’s okay. In a quiet moment, Jim asks him to stop using words like ‘green-blooded’ and ‘pointy-eared’, and from someone else’s mouth, those phrases sound crude and uneducated. McCoy hadn’t even been aware he’d been using them. It doesn’t mean that he’s ready to make nice with Spock. The man knows exactly how to get under his skin.

Then the away mission happens, and it’s the first time McCoy is confronted with a crew member dying under his hands. (He doesn’t know then that it is the first of many such occasions). Jim, pale and with a nasty scrape on his cheek, gives him a short summary of what happened – some rebel faction set up a bomb inside a public building, and the next thing they knew a wall of glass splinters came rushing towards them. Spock saw fit to push his captain into a ditch, a split second decision that left him with no time to protect himself from the debris.

McCoy works frantically. He concentrates on the large hand-sized piece of glass that went through Spock’s left and medium ventricles and cut his secondary aorta clean apart. Miraculously, the power engine Vulcans call their heart stubbornly keeps on beating, right to the point where McCoy switches on the life support and begins repairing the damage.

M’Benga, who did his residency in the Perya Khar hospital on Vulcan-that-was, once compared injured Vulcans to cats, “only that they have eighteen lives, not nine”. McCoy was never sure whether to believe M’Benga’s tales of toddlers falling twenty meters into desert canyons and surviving, or the Gol adept who gave up eating as an illogical pastime and began complaining of dizzy spells a year later. It seems that there is something to it, though. A human wouldn’t have survived Spock’s injuries even without the glass splinter in his heart. McCoy has to admit that Spock’s decision to push Jim out of the way was logical, much as he hates it.

It takes him three hours to remove the glass from Spock’s face and upper torso. There is no damage that cannot be repaired – luckily, the big ragged piece missed Spock’s right eye by a centimeter and tore into his cheek instead. There won’t even be a scar after a few dermo-therapy sessions. An eye would have been harder to replace.

Spock’s lower body and legs aren’t quite as bad as the rest. The bomb detonated on the building’s second floor, so most of the glass came from above, like a deadly rain fall. McCoy has to make sure, of course. And so he removes the surgical cover, and for the first time actually sees the thing that is the object of so much human speculation, guesswork and misplaced humor – a Vulcan’s genitals.

Maybe it’s because they – male Vulcans, that is – are so different. The testicles are inside and not visible to the eye. The penis is sheathed, protected by a skin pouch with a vertical slit. It does not look like a vagina, no matter what some human men need to believe. It looks completely alien, as it should. And as soon as he sees it, McCoy knows that there is something very wrong with Spock there.

The pouch, which should be almost flat, is swollen and infected. The skin folds that protect the slit look raw and green. There is some kind of sticky discharge around the opening, a fluid not quite yellow enough to look like human pus, but very similar.

McCoy exchanges a look with M’Benga. The junior doctor is the only other person in the room, after McCoy sent Nurse Lee to take his break.

“From the accident?” M’Benga asks.

McCoy shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

He examines the area to make sure there are no glass splinters they have overlooked lodged in the skin. M’Benga clears his throat.

“I believe we should take a look.”

McCoy steps back, indicating for the younger doctor to go ahead. M’Benga knows what he is doing, and McCoy will be the first one to admit that he isn’t an expert on Vulcan physiology. Even though, granted, he just did open heart surgery on one.

M’Benga’s touch is gentle and practiced; he hardly exerts any pressure at all, and yet he seems to know exactly where to push. The hidden penis emerges from its sheath, and McCoy draws in a sharp breath.

_Oh, Spock._

McCoy counts himself lucky that he hasn’t seen more of this in his career. Earth has all but abandoned the tradition. The inhabitants of Rigel II, unfortunately, consider the practice one of their cultural cornerstones, and three of their four genders are submitted to it at a young age. As a second-year resident, McCoy treated one teenage s/female who refused all surgical options he gave s/her. “I will not insult my ancestors, doctor,” s/she had said.

But _Vulcans_?

“No,” M’Benga answers the question before McCoy has a chance to say anything. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Vulcans are big on tradition, of course, and some desert tribes on Vulcan-that-was still practiced ritual scarification, but nothing like this. That is, as far as I know.”

Which might not be all there is to know. McCoy realizes this. Vulcans are secretive, and something like this would not be shared with outworlders, certainly not with humans who already have a prurient interest in everything to do with Vulcan sexuality.

Spock, however… an ambassador’s son, raised in one of Vulcan’s capital cities, a stronghold of Vulcan civilization. The son of a human mother. It can’t be. Even if Sarek, for some reason, allowed it to happen, Amanda would never have agreed.

Genital mutilation. Practiced over centuries to enforce ideas of morality and social order. Had it been the same for their First Officer? Cruelty inflicted by well-meaning relatives, maybe to help the halfbreed find his place in a rigid social order.

_I will not insult my ancestors._

McCoy understands that he needs to make a decision, and it has to happen now. They’ve fixed the damage from the glass splinters; Spock is stable and ready to enter a healing trance.

 “It’s hurting him.” McCoy says it without looking at M’Benga. “He’s in constant pain. I saw the readings when I took his physical, but he wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I kind of understand why, now.”

What was done has left Spock unable to have a normal sex life, if any at all. Hell, he must be in terrible pain every time he relieves himself.

“Hand me the scalpel.”

M’Benga gives him a look. “You sure?”

McCoy nods. Spock might never speak to him again, but he will be free of pain. And McCoy’s a doctor. It’s his job to take the pain away.

It doesn’t take more than four hours. Skin, even hybrid skin, is easily regenerated, and what was cut off is reconstructed. It will heal. McCoy can see that it will. And Spock might hate him for it.

M’Benga says nothing more, simply assists him and hands McCoy the necessary equipment. When they are done, McCoy replaces the covers and calls the nurses to take Spock to the recovery room.

Jim is waiting outside, still in his dirty away uniform. “He’ll be fine,” McCoy says, then smiles mechanically at Jim’s whoop. He refuses Jim’s invitation to join him in a nightcap in the captain’s quarters. He doesn’t trust himself after a glass of bourbon or three; not now. He might lose the tight grip he has on his anger, and share things with Jim he has no right, ethically or legally, to mention to anyone.

Jim accepts his excuse that he’s tired (after seven hours in surgery, it’s not really an excuse as much as the plain truth), but when McCoy is back in his quarters, he doesn’t sleep. He sits down at the computer and pulls up all information about Vulcans and genital mutilation he can find.

As expected, there is not much. Some pre-reform cultures practiced mild forms of circumcision, both male and female, but it was never the hot topic it became during Earth’s 20th and 21st century. Today, according to all reliable sources, Vulcans consider the practice outdated and illogical.

Then how? And why? And why the hell did Spock’s parents condone it?

McCoy thinks of Spock, who is currently deep in one of those all-healing trances M’Benga loves to go on about. How lonely he must be. If he refused to let a doctor examine him, he certainly never allowed anyone else to see him in a more private setting. No sex, no touching, no sharing physical sensations with another being. Or even himself – McCoy can’t imagine a way Spock could have pleasured himself, the state he was in. His days must have revolved around managing the pain, controlling it, suppressing it. Dealing with the infection that had clearly been setting in for a while.

The water glass on McCoy’s desk produces a satisfying crash as it shatters against the wall. There are glass splinters all over the floor now, and McCoy suddenly feels very tired. He’s seen enough of those today. He’s seen enough of many things.

Spock wakes from his trance 22 hours later – or rather, is woken rather rudely by M’Benga, who slaps him round the head to bring him out of the trance. It’s the first time McCoy watches the procedure, and it seems very un-Vulcan in its violent nature. Spock stops M’Benga after the third slap.

“That is enough. Thank you, doctor.”

McCoy makes an effort to put on his normal, rough bedside manner. “How’re you feelin’, Spock?”

“Adequate.” Spock’s face gives nothing away, whether he has noticed any changes or not. “I would like to return to my quarters.”

That is expected. At least he isn’t asking to go back to duty yet.

“Tell you what, Spock. You stay the night – let me finish – you stay the night, and tomorrow morning I’m officially discharging you to your quarters if your scans turn out alright. Deal?”

Spock doesn’t seem to think much of McCoy’s suggestion, but he doesn’t argue, and soon after appears to have gone back to sleep.

When McCoy walks into recovery a few hours later to check on him, he finds an empty bed, the blanket neatly folded. Apparently, Spock has discharged himself. McCoy would be angry – and maybe he is, a little – but he’s sensitive enough to realize that Spock doesn’t feel at ease in sickbay. Probably doesn’t feel at ease in any medical surroundings, and McCoy thinks he has a pretty good idea why. So he doesn’t make an angry call to Spock’s quarters as he might have done a week ago. Let the poor devil get some rest while he has the chance.

Spock returns to duty a few days later – still pale, his face still cut up from the glass splinters, but otherwise unchanged. Jim is happy to have his First back, claps Spock on the shoulder and invites him to have dinner together in the mess hall. Spock accepts, looking pleased in that understated way of his. He doesn’t seem to care that McCoy joins them, even responds with a raised eyebrow when McCoy half-jokingly reminds him to have something other than that horrible Vulcan tea of his (guy is still too thin).

“Vulcan tea might be an acquired taste, doctor, but so is the _Coffea Arabica_ brew humans consume in inordinate quantities.”

“It’s called coffee, Spock. And you know it.”

It feels good, trading those little insults. It feels good that Spock does not ignore him or hate him, but treats him as though nothing happened.

Something has happened, though. McCoy can be subtle when he wants to, and Spock never noticed the quick scan he took, earlier on the bridge.

The pain is gone.

Nothing is said between them, and McCoy has every reason to assume that it never will. And he respects that. It must be one of the most private matters in Spock’s life, a thing of pain and shame, and McCoy came to know of it not because Spock trusted him, but because the circumstances demanded it. He won’t pry further where he isn’t wanted.

And after a while, he thinks about it less and less.

There are many things McCoy doesn’t like about space, and one of them is that he hardly ever sees his little girl. Birthdays and Christmas are the worst, and he tends to spend the former alone, nursing his bitterness along with a bottle of bourbon (Jim won’t let him spend Christmas on his own, something he found out the hard way, back on Earth). Joanna’s birthday is in June, so his misery is neatly spaced out over the year. He smiles and laughs when he calls her, watches her unwrap the presents he sent and listens when she tells him all about the party she’s having. It’s almost a relief when she signs off, because then he can drop the façade and acknowledge just how sad and bitter he feels. Sad that he can’t be there with her, and bitter that Jocelyn can. Which is petty and awful, but there it is. Drinking does help to make the day go by a little faster.

He is about to fill his glass the second time when the door chimes. It can’t be Jim; he knows to leave McCoy alone on Joanna’s birthday, much as he hates it. McCoy decides to ignore whoever it is, but they are persistent. The door chimes again, and then again after precisely two minutes. McCoy knows only one person who would wait exactly 120 seconds before activating the chime a third time.

When he opens the door, he isn’t surprised to find Spock standing there.

“Spock, whatever it is, I’d appreciate a rain check. It’s not a good time for me right now.”

Spock inclines his head. “I understand.”

“That’s great. So, I’ll…”

“I have come to discuss a certain matter concerning my health, doctor. I am afraid it cannot wait.”

It’s an underhanded and very obvious tactic, and for a second, McCoy wonders if Jim put Spock up to this.

“Spock, why don’t you drop by in sickbay tomorrow morning. We can talk then.”

Spock looks straight at him. “I would prefer to talk now.”

McCoy sighs; it’s like trying to be subtle when talking to a seven-year-old. He doesn’t have the heart to tell Spock to go away, though.

Reluctantly, he steps back. “Come in, then.”

Spock does. It’s the first time he’s been in McCoy’s quarters, and he looks out of place, standing at parade rest until McCoy asks him to sit down on his little couch.

“Anything I can offer you? Don’t suppose you’d care for a glass?”

He makes no attempt to hide the fact that he’s been drinking alone, and Spock doesn’t comment.

“No, thank you. Perhaps a cup of tea?”

McCoy rolls his eyes, but heats up enough water for two – might as well join Spock in his rigid habits. They are healthier than McCoy’s own, that much is certain.

He sits down across from Spock, his own cup of sweet-smelling tea in his hands. He can sort of understand what Spock sees in the drink – it warms the soul, whereas bourbon warms only the body.

“So,” he says. “There something I can do for you, Mr. Spock?”

Spock takes a sip from his tea. “Not in a medical sense, no. I have come to… thank you. And to answer any questions you might have.”

McCoy knows immediately what Spock is referring to. “I did my job, Spock. And the rest… isn’t really any of my business.”

Spock raises an eyebrow; his way of conveying disbelief. “You must have some theories.”

“I do. None of them make me feel any better.”

“Facilitating positive emotions is not the purpose of a theory,” Spock says, as McCoy knew he would. “However, gaining previously unattained knowledge may lead to serenity of the mind.”

McCoy has the distinct feeling that he’s quoting someone; perhaps that Grandfather of all Logic, Surak. “I just don’t understand, Spock. What’s the logic in mutilating something nature intended for a specific purpose?”

Spock stares at the cup in his hands. “In my case, nature had very little to do with, doctor. I was an… experiment. A prototype. As is to be expected, a prototype will turn out to have flaws.”

“We all do, Spock. Prototype or not.”

“That is true. However, in my case, an epigenetic expression occurred that the geneticists had not expected. And it led to a serious malfunction in my physiology.”

McCoy knows that Spock tends to hind behind technical terms when he approaches a touchy subject. It still makes his eye twitch, the way Spock talks about himself as if he were a defective computer.

He doesn’t light into Spock for his choice of words, though. Not this time. “What malfunction was that, Spock?”

Spock does not look at him. “My anatomy combines a Vulcanoid penile sheath with a human-typical penis. The two characteristics… are not truly compatible in form or size. At the age of twelve I began to experience increasing problems due to… constant irritation and infection.”

McCoy nods slowly. He can see how that might happen. A human penis is not designed to be withdrawn into the body, and the Vulcan cavity meant to protect the organ has been shaped by evolution to hold a _Vulcanoid_ penis. Which is not that different from a human one, but different enough to cause problems.

“What therapy did your doctor suggest?”

McCoy isn’t sure, but he could have sworn that Spock took a deep breath, as if preparing himself mentally for an unpleasant reaction.

“None.”

“What? But-”

“I did not see a doctor. Not then, anyway.”

McCoy frowns. “But, your parents-”

“Doctor.” This time, Spock does take a breath. “Vulcan society is… different. We do not speak of such things. Control is expected at any and all times, as is the upholding of the privacy laws.”

McCoy can hardly believe what he is hearing. “Such things – you mean sexuality? Are you sayin’ that Vulcans can’t show a doctor their private parts? What is this – goddamn Victorian England?”

He didn’t mean to say the last bit; it just slipped out. But then, how can a civilized, cultured people be so damn _pigheaded_?

Spock does not react to his outburst. “No,” he says simply. “I am saying that I never informed anyone of my abnormality… or the problems it was causing.”

His choice of words stops the tirade McCoy was just warming up to. _Abnormality_. Yet another thing that set a young, insecure boy apart from his peers, a thing that would have caused immense shame even to a human teenager. In a society that holds privacy above everything else, where sexuality is shrouded in traditions and taboos… yes, sad as it is, McCoy understands how a teenage Spock would rather suffer physical pain than expose his secret.

He thinks about it, and a cold feelings begins to spread in his stomach. “Spock… those injuries… did you do that to _yourself_?”

If he did, then the problem runs deeper than trauma from the outside. Far deeper. If he did, McCoy is pretty sure that Spock will not be Enterprise’s First Officer much longer.

“No,” Spock says firmly. “That… what happened was an error of judgment on my part. I left Vulcan at seventeen to join Starfleet Academy. My first weeks on Earth were… eye-opening, if you will. Few humans had ever met a Vulcan, and even fewer knew that I was the son of Sarek, the half-breed child born to the House of Surak. No one knew me, and few cared how I behaved, who I chose to be. If I sought medical help for a private matter, no one would find out. It was my chance to do so before I joined the Academy.”

McCoy carefully sets down his tea; if he grips the cup any harder, he might end up breaking it. “Don’t tell me it was a Starfleet doctor who did… that.”

“No.” Spock briefly closes his eyes. “As I said, it was a grave error of judgment. My main concern at the time was that no one must know or find out. And so I sought help from a… less than trustworthy source. Someone who assured me that there would be no official record of the procedure.”

“And they butchered you.” McCoy knows he should have chosen a different word, but dammit, that is what they did. Whoever treated seventeen-year-old Spock simply hacked off what was in the way, hoping, perhaps, that things would fix themselves, eventually. Or maybe they just didn’t care.

Vulcan repression and human incompetence make for a perfect combination, it seems. In doing the maximum amount of damage possible.

Spock does not contradict him, for once. “I suffered from a severe infection that I self-treated with antibiotics. At the time of my entrance physical, I had healed sufficiently for my… injuries to pass unnoticed. After that, the infection returned frequently and had likely become chronical.”

Human incompetence at its finest. McCoy wants to find out who did those entrance examinations and have them dismissed for negligence. Or better yet, find the crazy person who did the “surgery” in the first place and wring their quack doctor’s neck.

“And no one ever…”

“No,” Spock says. “I found ways to avoid situations in which someone might have become aware of my problem.”

There is so much concealed in that one single sentence that McCoy doesn’t even know how to approach it. Yes, Spock’s smart enough to deceive well-meaning doctors, but that’s not all there is to it, is it?

“No one, Spock?”

Now Spock is avoiding his eyes again. “I am a Vulcan, doctor. We do not indulge in casual dalliance as humans do. I am unbonded. Abstinence is only logical.”

“I’m sure it is,” McCoy says quietly. “But you’re also half-human.”

Spock usually responds to this with a bitingly logical retort of his own, but not this time. Instead he nods, a surprisingly human gesture, and surprisingly sad.

“I am,” he says. “And as you know, Vulcans do not give thanks for acts performed in the line of duty. Humans, however, often feel the need to thank someone who has changed their life profoundly. And so I suppose I am here as a human, to thank you for an act of… kindness.”

No, McCoy doesn’t feel a lump in his throat, and he doesn’t take a large gulp of tea to hide it. He’s not that sentimental, dammit.

_I only did my job_ , comes to mind as a response, or _Anyone would have done the same thing_. But Spock has jumped over his own shadow in a big way, coming here, and McCoy recognizes an olive branch when one is offered.

Spock, of course, would deny any such illogicalities as gifting random doctors with branches of _Olea europaea_.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Spock,” he says, and then offers a branch of his own, in the only way he knows how. “I guess what I did was… only logical. Your problem was easily fixed, so there was no need for a separate procedure.”

_One that would have to be put on record_ , he doesn’t say. He doesn’t need to.

Spock nods slowly, and sets down his empty cup. “I thank you, doctor,” he says. “For the tea, and the company.”

McCoy watches him as he leaves. Spock is ever so careful when he moves – when he holds a cup of tea as if it was made from the finest china and not Starfleet polydur, when he hands McCoy a padd to show him some data, when he eats that awful plummik soup of his (or whatever it’s called). Always so careful. With deeds and words.

The bourbon is still on his desk, but McCoy doesn’t really feel like having that second glass anymore. Another cup of tea, maybe.

And maybe another call to Joanna. Shore leave on Earth is coming up soon, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> *This story mentions genital mutilation and its physical and psychological implications.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!


End file.
